762.00/263

The Chargé in Germany (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State 44

[Extracts]
No. 603

Sir:

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Memel: In my last telegram reporting on Memel, I cited an informed authority to the effect that Germany contemplated incorporating the Memel territory into the Reich, giving Lithuania in return access to Memel as a free port together with certain commercial advantages. I have now, however, been given advices that the plan for this territorial transfer may have been abandoned for the moment. I have been told to watch for a new German-Lithuanian treaty which may carry possible inferences of Memel’s remaining de jure under Lithuanian sovereignty while the de facto control will lie with Germany. This whole matter is, however, apparently still in the making.

Incidentally in the meantime, presumably as an instrument of pressure for some purpose, the new Lithuanian Minister Designate in Berlin45 has for some time been awaiting a response to his request to present his credentials.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As I have stated in a somewhat different manner earlier in this despatch, one cannot but be conscious of an underlying uncertainty in reporting from Berlin where one is confronted with an unknown, and unknowable, factor which is unqualifiedly dominant in all German policy. I refer to the attitude of Hitler and such decisions as he may reach. In reporting from Berlin one naturally follows the normal tendency of building up an estimate of German policy on the outward aspects of the scene presented, combined with such information from private sources and expressions of competent opinion as may be available. All this may be done and yet the possibility remains that what is reported is in reality far from the mark. At the cost of appearing to labor the point I cannot too strongly emphasize that it must not be lost sight of that all decisions rest in the final analysis in the hands of one man and of one man alone. It may easily be that Hitler is in a situation where he has not made up his mind what course to follow and thus in a sense no German policy exists. It may again be the case that Hitler has made up his mind but that he has imparted his decisions to no one or perhaps to a most limited group of his [Page 24] immediate associates who strictly guard the secret. Even attempts to estimate German policy from appraisals of Hitler’s character may likewise lead one into grave error. He remains inscrutable. Considerations such as the foregoing enter into all discussions of German policy between diplomatic representatives here.

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Respectfully yours,

Prentiss Gilbert
  1. Unsigned except in typescript, by reason of Mr. Gilbert’s sudden death on February 24; transmitted to the Department by the First Secretary of Embassy.
  2. Kazys Skirpa.